Has The Mystery of D.B. Cooper Been Solved?

ORIGINAL AIRDATE: 10/6/2008

It's one of the great unsolved mysteries in American crime. The legend of D.B. Cooper, who hijacked a = plane over the Pacific Northwest in 1971, jump= ing into the dark night sky with $200,000 in ransom, never to be seen again.

Authorities have had several suspects but few clues to his true identity, u= ntil now. A new book reveals evidence that a man named Jack Coffelt could = be D.B. Cooper. And in a strange twist, he has a connection to the famil= y of Abraham Lincoln!

It's all detailed in The Last Lincolns: The R= ise and Fall of a Great American Family, written by INSIDE EDITION's Executive Producer, Charles Lachman.

Lachman says, "I set out to do a story abo= ut whatever happened to the descendents of Abraham Lincoln, starting from the = day of his assassination right up until the modern era and, much to my shock, D= .B. Cooper suddenly reared his head."

The book uncovers that the 16th President's descendents were plagued by sca= ndal and personal tragedy. Enter Jack Coffelt, a boozing con man who spent nearly 20 years behind bars before cozying up to the great-grandson of Abra= ham Lincoln.

Coffelt became a chauffeur and confidante of Abraham Lincoln's last descend= ant, great-grandson Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith. It was all in a bid to g= et his hands on the Lincoln fortune, and when= that failed, Lachman says Coffelt hatched another pl= an...to hijack a plane heading from Portland to Seattle. Am= ong the evidence uncovered in the book, Coffelt was in Portland the night the plane took off.&= nbsp; And there's more.

"He made certain admissions to his lawyer in Memphis that he was in fact D.B. Cooper= . And then I was able to determine he went on a search for the bundle of miss= ing cash in the years after D.B. Cooper jumped out of a plane," explains <= span class=3DSpellE>Lachman.

And Coffelt suffered injuries consistent with a jump from a plane.

"He did appear with a limp in the immediate period after D.B. Cooper a= nd he did not have one before that," continues Lachm= an.

Just last year, the FBI released never-before seen evidence from the D.B. Cooper investigation, including his boarding ticket for the flight and a mo= ther-of-pearl tie clip which authorities say contains DNA that could finally point to his true identity.

But as compelling a case as Lachman makes for C= offelt to be the infamous skyjacker, we may never have the answer. Coffelt d= ied in 1975 and his remains were cremated, leaving behind no DNA to match.

"In your gut, do you really believe Jack Coffelt is D.B. Cooper?" asks INSIDE EDITION's Paul Boyd.
"In my gut, I believe he is," Lachman= says.

For more information on Charles Lachman's book = The Last Lincolns: The Rise and Fall of a Great Amer= ican Family, please visit: http://www.thelastlincolns.com/

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This page was last r= evised: November 15, 2008